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In this month’s column on community associations, I’d like to introduce a new tune that’s humming out there: the Palouse Musicians Alliance. This new group, neither guild nor union, wants to enhance our great local musical community – for fellow musicians, venues, and, above all, for the audience.
“Moscow, of course, is a great music town,” explains Jeff Evans, one of the founding members. Musicians are playing everywhere: they’re at the coffeehouses, the bars, markets, fairs, festivals, and even in your grocery store. In Moscow, local music is a such a staple of daily life that it almost seems like our lives here have a running soundtrack. But the danger is that the listeners – you and me – can sometimes take this rich soundtrack for granted, and sometimes we don’t know how to participate more fully in this local culture. Enter the Alliance.
The driving force is Kelly Riley, who also acts as the musical coordinator at the One World Café. With others, she wanted to create an association to support formally “the variety of casual events, businesses, and larger venues providing musical opportunities.” She then pulled in local musicians like Paul Anders, Jeff Evans, and Brian Gill. Last November, they first met, formed a board of directors, and began planning activities.
What is so unique about the Alliance, however, is that it tries to bring local musicians and local businesses together in ways that benefit both parties and help promote the world of arts on the Palouse. As Kay Meyers of the Red Barn Farms pointed out to Alliance members, it isn’t easy to find a musician when you need one – and word of mouth isn’t always the best solution.
To meet these needs, the Alliance has several key goals. Foremost, they are planning to launch their website. This will be a major resource, one that will hopefully list all musical groups and contain profiles and fee structures. This site will allow businesses and venues to search for musicians and musical groups: for example, if you are a café which needs a folk singer, or a lounge which needs a jazz combo, or a wedding party that needs a country or bluegrass group, this is the place to start. There will also be a calendar to alert the community of all upcoming events (updated weekly). Finally, there will be an electronic bulletin board for musicians – or music enthusiasts – to find each other.
On another level, the Alliance wants to help with compensation and bartering for musical services. A number of musicians feel that the local population loves the music scene, but they don’t fully understand the dynamics of proper compensation. The catalyst for this discussion came with last year’s Rendezvous in the Park, when local musicians weren’t paid for their labors. Out of this experience, however, came a surprising amount of positive discussion; and Evans stresses that the Rendezvous organizers were extremely forthcoming and candid in addressing this issue. Needless to say, the Alliance hopes to build upon this community goodwill. For example, as a sign of this increased cooperation between musicians and businesses, the new manager of The Beach has also participated in Alliance meeting. Finally, the Alliance is also worried about copyright laws and royalty fees. More and more, music publishers demand that venues that play live music must pay subscription fees to cover copyright royalties (much of which is distributed according to Top 40 radio play – hardly an equitable way of determining royalties for say, a Robert Johnson or Willie Dixon tune). As a consequence, many local musicians fear that local venues will drop live music altogether simply because they can’t pay the fees. Without going into the tortuous legal minutia, the Alliance hopes to provide musicians and business with a simple FAQ sheet that clearly outlines basic rights and facts of the matter. As he says, “We want to disseminate correct information, and not spread rumors. Now, if there;s any local attorneys who’d like to volunteer their time to help us with this project....”
Above all, as Evans and Anders emphasize, the new Alliance is a forum for all local musicians. Anyone can participate – ranging from amateurs to professionals, from buffs to businesses – and the Alliance hopes even to build bridges with the musical community at the University of Idaho.
Sean Quinlan is an historian of science at the University of Idaho. |
